


Foundations

by yet_intrepid



Series: Hurt/Comfort December [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Loss of Parent(s), Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 20:38:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2705972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been two weeks since Dad died, and Sam’s as much a wreck as the car was before Dean got his hands on it again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foundations

**Author's Note:**

> I'm planning to write twenty-five hurt/comfort fics this month! I'm also starting a full time job, so we'll see how this goes. But I've got a prompt list and everything, and I'm really excited.
> 
> December 1 prompt: Orphans

Sam had never understood the word  _homeless_  before Stanford.

He’d felt something, sure, and applied the term. Something aching and vaguely restless, something that surged up in him all those times he tried to run away. He’d felt a lack. But he’d never known what, exactly, was missing.

Until school. Until the apartment. Until Jess. Until he had it and then it was gone.

Sam never understood the word  _motherless_  either.

Dean did. He knew Dean did. But Dean knew what they’d lost. All Sam could do was stare at the emptiness left behind, wondering. Watch Dad grieve. Watch Dean grieve. Try, himself, to grieve for something that was never there. A vacuum, a black hole. Anti-matter. Anti-mother.

But all that was before Dad died.

Now it’s been two weeks, and Sam’s as much a wreck as the car was before Dean got his hands on it again. He sits on the steps at Bobby’s, elbows on his knees and chin in his hands, like he used to as a kid. Worries about Dean. After all, that’s easier than dealing with his own swirling mess.

He wasn’t close to Dad. He didn’t expect all this. Hell, Dad dying was always a daily possibility; he’d learned that at eight years old.  _If they can get Dad, they can get us._

And maybe that’s it, ridiculous as it is. Dad wasn’t much in the way of parenting but he was a roadblock, a barrier. He was good at this crap. Defying death, scraping by without ever seeming afraid. Dad wasn’t weak. Close calls left him angry, not shaking. Nothing got to him.

Except this, Sam corrects himself. And he closes his eyes. Whatever happened in the wreck, in the hospital. Something got Dad, and now he and Dean—well, it’s just them.

He thinks he’s starting to understand what it meant when they lost Mom.

There’s a creak on the stair behind him, and Sam looks up. Bobby’s lowering himself to sit close by.

“You hanging in there, Sam?” he says.

“I guess,” says Sam.

“Miss your Dad, expect,” says Bobby.

“I miss my Mom,” says Sam.

Bobby’s eyebrows rise. Sam breathes in deep.

“I never knew,” he says, quietly. “I mean, Dad and I. You know we didn’t get along that great. But I’m still just—I’m struggling, Bobby. So I guess now, it makes more sense. What it meant when she died.”

“Sure,” says Bobby.

“It’s like what you’re standing on rips away.” Sam can’t stand looking at Bobby anymore, so he just stares out at the yard. Dean’s out there somewhere, wandering. “You know? Like the road you’re driving on just disappears, or the bridge is out. And even if you hated the way you were going, that doesn’t mean you know where to go now. You just—you feel lost. And if you loved that road, felt safe or happy going that way, well. That’d be a lot worse.”

Bobby nods. “Stability’s stability. Even if it sucks, we hate to lose it.”

Sam laughs a little. “Yeah, even if almost the only stable thing was the instability. I mean, it’s not like it was easy knowing what Dad wanted. Sometime he’d tell you and then other times, you gotta figure it out. But at least you knew…you knew he’d come and go. You knew he’d change certain things, and other things he’d be stuck on forever. Does that make sense?”

“Sure, kid,” Bobby says again.

“I guess Mom must’ve been easier.” Sam hesitates. “I mean, the way Dean talks about her. Like she just—she was stable. And I didn’t know her, I know, but like, I’ve lost a parent now. And I’ve lost—lost someone who was stable and loving and safe. So now I’m dealing with Mom’s death, too, all these years later. And I don’t know how.”

Bobby claps him on the back. “You’ll figure it out. You’re real bright, Sam.”

Sam looks down. “Sure, maybe. But sometimes I just feel really, really young, I guess. I feel—”

“Like an orphan,” says Bobby.

“Yeah,” says Sam, surprised. “Yeah. That.”

“Think maybe it’s cause you are one?”

Sam laughs again, because he’s tired of sighing. “Yeah. Maybe so.”

Bobby nods. “Well, you got me if you want.” And then he goes into the house.

Sam lowers his head into his hands again. Maybe, he thinks, he can learn to stand on something new.


End file.
